Hey all - new to the R129 community and figuring out this replacement key thing has been such a pain. I've chatted with multiple dealers and MB mechanics... of course, they were of no help.

I emailed MB corporate and just received a call back. The rep on the phone stated that they won't have replacement keys available until Q4 of 2020. That's over a year from now, and even when that time comes I wouldn't hold my breath.

They claim they still don't have a manufacturer available, which frankly feels like a ton of crap. It's been over 2 years since they've discontinued the key... I assume that they aren't seeing the demand and therefore just aren't making the investment.

We're not alone in this, other late 90's MB keys were also discontinued back in 2017 with no help in sight. This includes the S-Class and M-Class.

I urge everyone in the 90's SL, S, and M communities to email MB corporate requesting replacement keys. Please email the supply chain managers directly and provide a number for MB customer support to contact you. Hopefully that nudges them a little!

MB Supply Chain Managers:
Daniel Mastin - Daniel.Mastin@MBUSA.com
Kevin Harty - Kevin.Harty@MBUSA.com

In the meantime, hold on tight to your keys.

 

Thank you sir, I will get on it as well.
I have a 99 and my car is a US imported vehicle into the Middle East.

God help us all.

 

I believe MB has a restoration division like BMW, Porsche? Maybe they can help source some old stock in Germany or give better guidance. I know with BMW they will bring up prints for old parts and make a run if you're willing to pay enough!

 

There is a Classic center in Irvine CA just down the road but so far no help on this

 

Yeah I'll keep you guys updated on what I find. I will not give up here!

In the meantime, I hate to say the only solutions I know of are to either get rid of your immobilizer (huge pain) and cut new non-chipped keys, or swap over the ignition and locks from a donor car (another huge pain) with multiple keys available. If anybody has any other solutions, please do share.

 

No reply to my email.

 

Enough is enough guys. It's pretty obvious at this point that Mercedes is just stalling and has no intention of getting this done. Somebody needs to get a thread going for all of the people who have bricked cars and cars without fobs and a lawsuit needs to be filed. Believe me, there will be no keys provided by this company until somebody finally forces their hand. So ridiculous.

 

Whats wrong with just getting these get the key cut and coded and putting your original away as the spare.
https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Jom-Remo...gAAOSwdLVahtLW
Or if its the shell and blade your after
https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Flip-Rem...oAAOSwZW5aRgRo

Or supply a sample to a key maker on Alibaba and get 100 made up, im sure you will sell what you dont want to other R129 owners
https://www.alibaba.com/product-deta...5878B0L76Y&s=p
https://www.alibaba.com/trade/search...iewtype=G&tab=

 

I got a replacement key fob for my R129 (1997 SL 500, U.S. spec) back in the spring. I am an American living in Europe (Netherlands) and M-B informed the dealers here that they were available early this year.

The issue was M-B's inability to find a new supplier for the outdated chips that these keys use after their previous supplier discontinued making them. I suspect the current supply of new keys is limited by manufacturing constraints, so they may be rolling them out by region.

The first replacement key I got in May worked on the ignition, but not on the infrared lock mechanism. After a few trips to the dealer, and discussions between the mechanics here and in Stuttgart, they finally sent out a new key and it works fine. The first one was just defective. Obviously, some quality control issues.

No excuse, though, for not sufficiently informing U.S. dealers of timing for the replacement keys. Suggest you talk directly with the parts manager at your dealership and ask them to check with M-B on when the keys will be available there. They are definitely available here!

 

My key FOB just fell apart and I have received replacement ignition key replacements. BUT they don't operate the trunk and Mercedes tells me they have to replace the tumbler and there is only one available and it is in Germany. About $700. Surely that is not the answer to get access to my trunk. What can I do for access? Aftermarket available? Anything?

 

if you don't mind a separate key for the trunk, I can have factory-new trunk cylinder and keys shipped directly to you for half that cost plus shipping. And yes, it's Genuine Mercedes-Benz parts.

 

Thank you for the response JaoNai. It has been resolved in an embarrassing manner. Believe it or not, both the MB technician and I did not know how to operate the trunk correctly. At least I have an excuse. I just acquired the car and have no experience with it. I simply did not know how to operate the trunk latch properly. My bad. But the MB tech did not either and he could not operate the trunk latch. So we both thought the truck did not open with the new keys. Bottom line is that we both know how to operate the latch correctly now and the trunk opens fine with the nonFOB keys. Neither of us knew the trunk lock rotated counter clockwise from the vertical.. Very embarrassing!

 

I have a 1999 sl500 r129 and my key fob recently stopped working. I can still start the vehicle but the lock and unlock feature and panic all stopped working. I tried replacing the batteries and no luck. I would like to purchase a new fob. Anyone know where I can get a new key fob? Thanks in advance

 

I am in the same boat as you. Good luck.
See if you can take your key fob to an electronics technician, maybe he can figure out why the IR is not working.

 

Are all you guys just inquiring directly with a dealer about these keys when we eventually reach Q4 2020?

 

Just dusting off the 1999 SL500 as one cannot fly due to covid, well at least till things subside with rules and regulations say we can do so with less restrictions, i’ve decided to pull out the R129 and start to travel with it in and around the majestic Rocky Mountains, here in Canada 🇨🇦. Much to my shagrin, i’m trying to order parts and get my car back on the road, even though the two by our keys are decent shape I decided to order a new key and learned exactly what this thread is saying.... nothing in the pipe line for a supplier. So I’m S.O.L. says the local dealer.

 

I ordered and received a key for my 2002 SL500 from M-B last week. Apparently some more became available (only a few - I believe less than 100) and were available to folks who had 4200 lb paperweights (or a dealer who presented a good story to M-B) Part number Q-4-76-0025. My dealer charged me $228 while the list price was 352. The key is waiting for me at the dealer, but my car is currently at an independent shop getting the A/C worked on.

So, again, they are showing up in spurts, here in the states. Contact your dealer. Also, write a letter - not an email, but an actual physical letter to M-B Supply Chain in both the US and Germany.

jdg

 

Much obliged, thanks.

 

It seems to me like this is just another example of MB's bean-counter/marketing driven strategy to cut off support for, and even brick, their older models to try and drive people into the their newer, disposable platforms.

 

As much as I like a good conspiracy theory (and who doesn't), I think this is more along the lines of an unexpected consequence of these cars having a much longer lifetime than was expected, combined with a technology that became a dead end.

We all know, or at least should by this time, that the original company that made the chips used in our remotes (and the MLs of the same time frame) went out of business. I suspect their main customer was M-B, but that's another business matter altogether, and when M-B moved to a new technology for their security, the company did not have enough business to survive. For many years this was not a problem, as Mercedes had a stock of keys on hand to meet the demand. However, in the last three to five years, it turns out that M-B did not have enough of these original keys to meet the continuing demand (I wonder how many former owners forgot to give the dealer their second key when they sold or traded their SL for something else and still have those keys at the bottom of a drawer somewhere?) and had to figure out what to do. Too many requests and too many of these vehicles on the road to just ignore the situation, so they began looking for a solution. Since 2017 (as far as I can tell from reading old posts on this and other R129 forums) the official response from M-B has been "this is a supply train issue and we are working on a solution". Well, they finally have a solution that seems to work. Of course the next question is how much to ramp up production (partly from the supplier side) and how many to guarantee to be purchased (more of an M-B question).

We are seeing keys become available world wide. Of course, those of us who have no key, or only have one key are the most effected by this and want an "instant" solution. From a logistics perspective, I'm not sure how one could or should handle this demand. The current allocation process (at least as I've been able to find out) is to get keys to those who have none so that they can get back on the road. For those who can drive their vehicles, they will get their second key "soon". The big problem from the supplier perspective (M-B in this instance) is how to identify who has 4200 lb paperweight? Probably the dealers know best and are tasked with prioritizing available keys. The dealer problem is that it does not seem that MBUSA (for example) is not informing the dealers when these keys become available. It takes a dedicated dealer to keep checking to discover that some exist. Then word of mouth gets out to the owners and we rush to get one. This cycle then seems to repeat.

I am cautiously optimistic that M-B has a plan, and that we all will be able to get at least two remote keys at some point in the foreseeable future. As for valet and flat keys? I doubt those will ever see the light of day. But that's just my guess, and I've been known to be wrong on a number of occasions.

I'm sure Mercedes-Benz would love to convert us owners of older vehicles into owners of new vehicles. But I am also sure that they know that is impossible and that many people who own older cars have no interest in the latest and greatest. This mess with the keys is one reason I don't want a newer car with even more electronics that will fail with no replacement options at some point.

Just my thoughts. Of course, YMMV.

jdg

 

JDG, thanks for the update, we are all left to the principles of the "squeaky wheel gets the grease" and the "first hog to the trough".

Happy hunting to all.

 

I know MB has a classic department because I tried to contact them and got a response.
So they are looking after classic cars and that is no surprise, all the other german automakers are doing it.

The question is, cars of the 90's... where do they fall?

 

The Classic Center in Irvine is good for many things, but this is beyond them. The chip takes special manufacturing that is not within the Classic Center's capability.

jdg

 

thanks for the update... I went into my local mb dealership, and showed them this forum message, and they happily went ahead and ordered me a new key. Simple! 😂 The Parts Dept contacted me back immediately, and said MB head office wanted to know for whom and why I needed a new key.

unbelievable!

Is my vehicle not 20 plus years old, and the touch pads are worn out and the transponders on the keys intermittently work. Is that not good enough reason?

Bloody Christ Mercedes-Benz head office people...I have no other reason.

#buffoons

 

IMHO, we are just at the very beginning of a monumental key/access/security/theft prevention crisis with MBZ. The 'keyless entry/start system is troublesome as implemented by MBZ... Toyota (Lexus) similar feature never fails and is trouble=free. I see a massive class action legal fight developing. I do not know why or understand why it persists in MBZ they can so screw up the implementation of what SEEMS to be a good electronic convenience feature. Toyota and Nissan do it without faults. BMW has similar defective systems--so much so that their premier 7 series was know by Techs as the 'Who Knows' cars---even Factory specialists often cannot diagnose and correct the defects. I know one case of 7 of these Who Knows cars arriving at a Dealer in Virginia, not working, Techs from Germany spent a month trying, and the cars were returned to the factory and CRUSHED as unfixable. I suspect the German style of electronic systems development is like NASA's --different contractors developing the specifications for their portion in a vacuum and making parts that satisfy THEIR spec, but don't work with those developed by the other designers. Then yet another firm is hired to cob up 'a fix', yet another 'box' and wiring octopus to connect the parts so they work==sort of. All with no attempt at System Integration and Testing until installed in the car. And now there are so many different 'modules.' and computer chips, sensors, switches, wiring connections and programs running that have not been developed in concert with all the others--it has become a 'tower of babble.' Probability of correct functioning is almost zero. Probability of system integration errors 'bricking' the German cars is approaching certainty. Will YOU TRUST the 'collision avoiding emergency braking' system of a VOLVO designed, engineered, and built in CHINA? Statistically , it is a better bet than one from Germany. And we have the Boeing 737-Max debacle giving the computer system more authority than the pilots. "Dave, you can't do that." from "2001 A Space ----"